Prior Arago Honor Nonprofits Earn Additional 2026 Meridian Innovation Funding
Three nonprofits previously recognized by the Meridian Foundation’s Arago Honor Awards for innovation are being recognized again in 2026 for continuing to solve community problems with brand new disruptive and solution-oriented programs. The nonprofits share $37,500 for their continued work as innovators.
“The programs by Be Nimble Foundation, Christel House Academy, and CICOA Aging and In-Home Solutions each builds on their previous innovative recognition,” explains Indy Meridian Foundation founder Donna Oklak. “These second generation program ideations are significantly different from the first. The process of continuing to innovate and challenge the status quo shows how creative and intentional nonprofit leaders work is ongoing and benefits new parts of the community as ideas are refined and managed.”
The Meridian Foundation proudly recognizes:
Be Nimble Foundation. (Honored in 2022 for Melon Kitchens, a ghost kitchen for Black/Brown chefs housed at 16 Tech’s AMP Marketplace)
Honored in 2026 for #Add to Cart Fellowship and The Creator Lab.
Every innovation at Be Nimble has been born from the same root belief: undercapitalized entrepreneurs are not lacking in vision or determination, they are lacking intentional, systemic investment. Through Melon Kitchen, Be Nimble has built a framework on four interconnected forms of capital that every founder requires to truly scale. Financial capital (1) ensures founders have real investment, not just advice. Infrastructure capital (2) gives them access to the physical and operational resources typically reserved for more capitalized businesses. Human capital (3) connects them to mentors, legal experts and industry specialists to help them execute. Technical capital (4) provides technology, data tools and, systems needed to run a modern business.
Once Be Nimble validated the 4 CAP framework through Melon, they had a replicable architecture to deploy across new sectors and new founder archetypes, says co-founder Kelli Jones.
#AddtoCart was their first extension of the architecture, adapted specifically for beauty, health and wellness consumer packaged goods founders. The Creator Lab is the most recent evolution, designed in direct response to persistent pain points observed across all founders: building systems, product discovery, marketing, and distribution. Creators who enter the Creator Lab have already solved the hardest part of entrepreneurship by building audience trust. With 4 CAP, a business founder who is ready to bring a product to market but needs infrastructure, capital, and systems to work at scale will be better equipped to integrate all four forms of capital.
Be Nimble Foundation receives $15,000 from The Meridian Foundation for its continuous innovative mindset.
Christel House (Honored in 2023 for Indy Teach Program an in-house teacher accreditation program )
Honored in 2026 for College and Careers Collaboration
When philanthropist Christel DeHaan launched her network of schools in 1998, she wanted to do more than just educate kids. Newer educational innovative initiatives at Christel House, after her death in 2020 are focused on moving children out of poverty for life.
Christel House College and Careers collaboration, launched in 2024, will serve more than 1,700 students over four years across four partner schools—Lawrence Central High Schol, Lawrence North High School, Herron-Riverside High School and Irvington Preparatory Academy. Each student in the $2.5 million program is paired with a dedicated coach who provides mentorship, career exposure and guidance throughout high school and for the subsequent five years helping students overcome challenges and stay on track.
Whether students are applying to college, earning a technical certification or entering the workforce, coaches offer hands-on guidance to help them make the transition to early adulthood.
Christel House launched this collaboration based on more than two decades of results in its Indianapolis schools, where coaching and counseling are part of the curriculum. According to state data, Christel House Indianapolis graduates earn higher median incomes five years after graduation than those from nearly every other public high school in the city and rank first among Marion County schools serving high percentages of low-income students.
The goal has been to take the program and extend it into non-Christel House schools and get comparable results. The collaboration is funded by Christel House International, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Lilly Endowment and Lumina Foundation. In 2025 the collaboration received The Indianapolis Business Journals’ New Nonprofit Program of the Year Award.
Christel House International receives $10,000 from the Meridian Foundation for creatively reimagining how their proven College and Careers Collaboration model could serve more students.
CICOA Aging and In-Home Solutions (Honored in 2021 for Duett, a software product)
Honored in 2026 for the Wrinkle Innovation Studio and broader scope of national influence
In 2021 when the Meridian Foundation began discovering nonprofit innovation, CICOA’s Venture Studio and consulting work was a remarkable first year recipient. In the intervening six years, the opportunity and the demand for creative thinking and new community solutions has expanded far beyond its original local ecosystem
This second phase of the Wrinkle Innovation Studio reflects the shift that community-based organizations across the country are asking similar questions about how they can become future builders of social care. CICOA is at the forefront of community based organizations that are beginning to own and articulate a broader narrative around advantaged social care innovation—the idea that organizations embedded in community have unique insight and proximity that positions them to create better solutions.
CICOA has supported the launch of seven new products and services on behalf of two community-based organizations, all moving through a pipeline of ideation, iteration and launch. Along the way the nonprofit has explored roughly 40 additional concepts that did not advance to launch, often due to market shifts, capital constraints or early validation that the solution did not translate in customers’ hands.
Jonathan Haag, the leader of CICOA’s Wrinkle Innovation studio, says one of the biggest barriers in social care innovation is belief. “Many community-based organizations have incredible insight into the needs of older adults, people with disabilities and caregivers. But historically they have not been positioned—or encouraged—to build scalable solutions.
“Projects like Duette and Postbook built by CICOA serve as ‘proof points’,” says Jonathan. “They demonstrate that community based organizations can move from insight to product—designing solutions that improve how care is coordinated, communicated and delivered. Proof points matter because they build belief.
“The Wrinkle innovation Studio builds on that foundation by helping other organizations see the same pathway is possible for them,” says Jonathan. “When leaders see that a peer organization has taken an idea from concept to launch, it makes the idea of innovation more attainable. Both the venture and the studio reinforce each other. The ventures provide evidence. The studio helps multiply that momentum.”
CICOA receives $12,500 from the Meridian Foundation for continuing to be an outlier with an innovation studio embedded inside their nonprofit and for helping other older adult and disability agencies across the country replicate their own Wrinkle Studio.